


I Was Beautiful Once, I Can Be Beautiful Again

by enjolraspermittedit



Series: refresh [1]
Category: Octet - Malloy
Genre: Addiction, Character Study, Depression, Gen, Internet, No Dialogue, internet addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 07:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18806584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjolraspermittedit/pseuds/enjolraspermittedit
Summary: Velma is very hesitant about attending the Friends Of Saul meeting, because she is not a Friend Of Saul; she is a friend of multiple people online and she does not want to lose them. At the meeting, she learns that she doesn't necessarily have to.





	I Was Beautiful Once, I Can Be Beautiful Again

It was a long walk to the meeting, so long that Velma considered not going at all. She didn't even _want_ to go, but she didn't know what would happen if she refused Saul's request. She was sure that she didn't actually need this. She didn't have a problem. If anything, her internet use was the opposite of a problem. Sure, she found herself in toxic online communities sometimes, but she also had more friends online than she ever did in person.

One positive thing, however, was that she was late to the meeting. The meeting for addicts. Which she wasn't.

She sat down, wordlessly mouthing along to the hymn that the rest of the group was singing. She was careful to avoid eye contact with everyone. She wasn't used to...this. "This" being real life interactions, and she hated that phrase, because wasn't the internet real life too? Weren't her people that she talked to digitally just as real as the seven other people sitting around her? Wasn't all of the bullshit that she ran into in internet spaces just as real as bullshit that happened to her in her offline life? She preferred the internet crap to the real crap anyway. It was a distraction. She hardly had time for anyone as used up as herself, so she'd spend all of her time sitting alone staring at the phone in her hands. That way she could ignore the stuff going on around her and focus on her friends or even her enemies that she'd discovered online. What was so wrong about that? 

And it turns out there was nothing wrong with it, not inherently. To her surprise and delight, no one in the group shamed one another or told one another that they had to log off for good. They just wanted themselves to be careful, to not let the addictions (was that really what it was?) overcome them.

Velma wanted desperately to hate the meeting, but she couldn't. She wasn't good at hating things in general, and there was something soothing about being in a place where people could openly talk about addictions to Candy Crush or porn or whatever without being judged. That, and everyone there was kind to her. She wasn't sure if she'd find lifelong friendships in these people, (mostly due to the fact that she was quite younger than them all) but they were companions at the very least.

Still, it took until the very end of the meeting for her to actually come forward and talk about her problems. Actually, as she told her story, she tried to present them as _not_ problems, and instead talk about the part of her that remained optimistic about everything. She wasn't so successful at making herself seem like she didn't have any issues, but maybe that was okay. She didn't realize until the end of her speech that she probably sounded like some type of fool. And yet, the seven other people around her thanked her and she almost felt as if she'd managed to touch them and speak directly to them, if only for a couple of seconds.

As the meeting drew to a close, all of the members (including Velma herself) asked if she would be back to the next meeting, a week from today. She wasn't sure, but there really was a sense of community in these eight broken people with digital souls, and she'd hate to be the reason that there were only seven people there...

Velma was looking forward to next week.

**Author's Note:**

> oh my g-d, I think this is the world's first Octet fic? Find me on twitter at @RomanasVilla and on tumblr at @8tet. (Am I allowed to promote my social media in an Octet fic?)  
> I saw the show last week and it spoke to me very much, especially Velma's character, so I decided to write this ficlet about her. I hope I did alright. Also, Kuhoo Verma is a very sweet person who deserves nothing short of the best.  
> The title, by the way, is a mashup of the lyric "I was ok once / I can be okay again" and the title of Velma's song that she sings at the end, "Beautiful."
> 
> Also, yes, that was a very minor Ghost Quartet reference in there.  
> If this fic is successful then I'll turn it into a series where each character gets a similar treatment!


End file.
